US appeals court seems skeptical of states' challenge to Trump's mass firings

By Daniel Wiessner

May 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday seemed likely to rule that 19 states and Washington, D.C., lack the ability to sue President Donald Trump's administration over the en masse termination of nearly 25,000 recently hired federal employees.

A three-judge 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Richmond, Virginia, heard arguments in the Trump administration's appeal of a judge's ruling that temporarily required federal agencies to reinstate thousands of probationary workers who were fired in February.

Probationary employees typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal workers in new jobs. The mass firings are part of Trump's broader efforts to significantly downsize the federal workforce and slash government spending, which has invited a series of legal challenges.

The 4th Circuit last month paused the judge's ruling pending appeal, allowing agencies to fire many of the probationary workers a second time. The judge had ordered the reinstatement of employees who live or work in the states that sued.

Circuit Judges Allison Jones Rushing and J. Harvie Wilkinson said in that decision that the states likely lacked standing to bring the lawsuit because they could not show direct harms stemming from the mass firings. And they seemed to be leaning the same way during Tuesday's arguments.

"I have some innate sympathy for your position, because I do think it’s a hard thing to be abruptly terminated from one’s job,” Wilkinson said to Washington, D.C., Solicitor General Caroline Van Zile, who argued for the states. “The question I keep having is, where is your concrete injury? And I think it’s your biggest hurdle in this case.”

Wilkinson is an appointee of Republican former President Ronald Reagan. He and Rushing, a Trump appointee, also suggested that reinstating federal workers was not the proper remedy for the states, which claim the firings were illegal because agencies did not give them the 60 days' notice required by law.

“If you just want the notice and you’re here complaining about a lack of notice, why didn’t you ask for an injunction to provide the notice?” Rushing said.

Van Zile responded that reinstating federal employees was the only way to restore the status quo and prevent states from being inundated with unemployment claims.

“When we filed this complaint there was a tsunami on the way,” she said.

Circuit Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, who dissented when the panel stayed the lower court ruling, said that the states had alleged numerous examples of direct injuries stemming from the mass firings.

“What about the states having to process, unexpectedly, thousands of applications for unemployment ... you don’t consider that to be harm?” Benjamin, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, asked Sarah Welch of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Welch said the states would have dealt with a surge in unemployment claims regardless of whether they received notice, and at most would be entitled to have workers reinstated for 60 days so they could prepare for the terminations.

“But instead they received indefinite reinstatement lasting until final judgment and perhaps beyond,” she said.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month paused a separate ruling by a judge in California requiring six agencies to reinstate nearly 17,000 probationary workers pending the Trump administration's appeal.

The case is Maryland v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 25-1248.

For the states: District of Columbia Solicitor General Caroline Van Zile

For the federal agencies: Sarah Welch of the U.S. Department of Justice

Read more:

US appeals court sides with Trump, clears way to fire thousands of federal workers

US judge blocks Trump administration from firing federal employees on probation

Trump administration ordered to retract 'sham' rationale for firing workers

NOAA fires previously reinstated probationary workers, sources say

US Supreme Court halts reinstatement of fired federal employees

US judge questions his power to reinstate federal workers nationwide